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Byerly’s, an upscale grocer in Minneapolis, is renown for great recipes. Back in 1992, the store copyrighted this twist on the traditional artichoke dip recipe and advertised it to customers on give away recipe cards. It can be made ahead for parties, but, you are pressed for time, Byerly’s offers a great spinach artichoke dip in it’s delicatessen. (Or…if you prefer spinach to jalapeño, just substitute!) Serve with crispy crostini or sliced, toated French bread.

A pretty simple, always delicious recipe for a cold Saturday night. The trick is in the beauty of the creamy sweet Wisconsin Russet Potato. This russet produces lovely, crispy fries that are soft inside and taste even better when watching high school hockey state tournaments!

Spread sparingly on large ungreased sheet pans (may use parchment paper) and place in hot oven. Let potatoes roast for 30-45 min., or until the bottom of the potatoes brown. Turn potatoes and contue roasting until crisp on the outside, and soft inside. Serve.

The first Milwaukee Hard Rolls recipe is exactly as we remember! It has that great dry crusty top and the cornmeal bottoms we love, and comes from Gordon King a Milwaukee baker who ran Wilbert’s baker, which closed back in 1993. Note: It requires high protein bread flour and a little more yeast. And, while the directions make the tops of these rolls plain, feel free to top rolls with sesame seeds or poppy seeds.

An article, with his recipe for hard rolls appeared in the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel and is preserved here: http://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=1298&dat=20050511&id=VS4zAAAAIBAJ&sjid=dggGAAAAIBAJ&pg=6793,3364570

The second Milwaukee Hard Rolls has the precise inside we remember. Light and airy, yet with a “chew”, and that very, very slight, sour taste we remember. And this recipe uses hardly any yeast.

This is a terrific roll, yet the crust that isn’t quite right. Do not remember the split top, but it is hard and stays hard. But not as flaky. Perhaps it is the egg wash. Also, the recipe directions result in rolls that are smaller than traditional Milwaukee Hard Rolls. So, if one wants the traditional Milwaukee Hard Roll, just double the size of the roll to make 8-10 rolls instead of 12, and replace the egg white wash with the a starch wash, as in the previous recipe. Make it plain, as directed, or add sesame seeds or poppy seeds. Oh, and be sure to use high protein bread flour!

These rolls come from the 1955 Woman’s Home Companion Cook Book and turn out great! The recipe calls for “enriched flour” and shortening, but I slightly revised the recipe, using high protein bread flour, Dakota Bread Flour and lard instead of shortening. I added the salt last so that it did not prohibit the yeast, and slightly shortened the rise time. Oh, and I made only 8-10 rolls instead of a dozen or more.

That seems to be the difference, and the key to producing rolls that look like they come from a bakery. Please note below, this can be altered to make crusty rye rolls, too!

Super Bowl is coming, so today’s posts include a variety of inherited chili recipes, topped off with this inspired recipe, 3-Bean Super Bowl Chili. This new recipe is the result of all of the other chili recipes we’ve loved, and a new-found love for all things extremely hot and spicy.

This was a simple recipe we hijacked in college and turned into “Beer Chili,” using long-neck bottles of Red, White and Blue Beer. Hey! Don’t laugh, we went to school in Milwaukee and there was a sale on long-necks! No doubt, there was a lot more beer poured into this chili then, than what the recipe prescribed.

This prize-winning International Chili Society recipe won the competition in the late 1970s. The ingredients here are roughly the same, ~but the amounts differ, as the 1977 winning recipe for “Jay’s Chili” found here: http://www.chilicookoff.com/Winner/wc_1977.asp. It’s well worth the time to pursue that link , for the site is non-stop chili and salsa!

The Tiguas, who are descendants of Indians from New Mexico’s Pueblo tribes, run amazing tribal restaurants in Texas’ oldest town, Ysleta (which means “little island’), which is now a suburb of the border city of El Paso. There they offer Indian, Mexican and Texan tastes on a menu that includes bread baked exactly the way it was 300 years ago, sizzling fajitas and this fiery red chile stew.

A college friend who hailed from Buffalo, New York, introduced me to Buffalo Wings in 1982. We were two of 11 girls sharing “the Mansion,” a dilapidated, but enchanting house near Marquette University in Milwaukee.

We always needed an excuse to throw a party, and Lizzy knew of this crazy, great wing recipe. Lizzy said it was created by a lady in her Buffalo Bar and that those wings were in great demand there. Lizzy’s dad told us we “would be smart if we opened a stand and started selling these wings.” And I, well, I had a Polish grandma named Bernice that was beloved by butchers at Kissinger Meats, who usually tossed unwanted wings away. So, grandma could get me 5 pounds of wings for a song.

Now there are so many recipes, and I’ll be sure pass on a few other favorites along with an uptake on the blue cheese dip. (But, of course, ~Lizzy’s recipe for the original blue cheese dip follows her wing recipe in this post.) Those other wings will post in coming days, but Lizzy’s is the first recipe, and the best.